So just a fun post today. This is not my story, but has been one of those that I read many years ago, and has always been a favorite of mine. The server gods are capricious at times, and I've been a victim of them myself. A recent issue with a failed power supply reminded me of this, and I thought that I would share.
Lo, and in those days businesses relied on their hosting companies to provide them with excellent customer service, persistent uptimes, and rapid response during downtime … [Read more...]

Our ESXi forums and home server forum is now open for posting and community. Join us for discussions, questions, tutorials, and more on ESXi home labs, home servers, general IT, and more. The forum is a stand-alone installation, and does not require registration on the blog, but requires individual registration on the forums themselves. To register, visit the Home Server Blog Forum and create an account. You can also reach the forum through the link on the top level menu.
As the blog has … [Read more...]

ESXi 5.5 is finally here, and brings with it a lot of good, new features. Especially interesting, is that early tests seem to indicate that the USB passthrough issues that people were seeing on 5.1 have somewhat resolved themselves (although there are reports that USB 3.0 is working, but not USB 2.0). In addition, however, an interesting tangle for those of us with home labs relying on the free hypervisor has cropped up.
VMWare is moving is to get rid of the traditional vSphere Client that we … [Read more...]

Every good lab needs an easy to setup, quality, reliable form of iSCSI to use for storage, even if it's not for anything but testing. Working with ESXi in any type of production environment, you won't be using local storage, but rather iSCSI datstores. There are a plethora of methods to getting good iSCSI targets, but I've found the best solution for a Windows OS is StarWind iSCSI SAN Free Edition. It's a software that I promote, enjoy using, and respect the team over at Starwind for making a … [Read more...]

One of my ESXi nodes is a build out with an ASUS KGPE-D16 motherboard that sports 16 cores and 64GB of RAM. One of the challenges with this server build is that the ASUS KGPE-D16 motherboard requires two 12V EPS connectors from the power supply, and not many power supplies actually have these connectors. In fact, one of my favorite places to go shop for power supplies, NewEgg, doesn't have a way to search for power supplies with dual EPS 12V connectors.
ASUS KGPE-D16 Power Supply: Dual 8-Pin … [Read more...]

Don Fountain

The HomeServerBlog.com is information about using real datacenter technologies in your home, configured in an easy to maintain, efficient, and most of all, cost effective manner. We focus on helping you with a lab that is multiuse, allowing for experimentation with virtualization and other technologies, home storage, home backup, and more.
Note that my posts are my opinion, and not any official view or stance of my employer. About Me